The Three Feathers - Joshua's Journey

Friday, June 14, 2013

Hi everyone, when I first wrote "The Three Feathers," I could not in my wildest dreams imagine that there would be other books to follow. Therefore I didn't really think about my blog at all. I thought I'd make a blog for "my book" because this would be the one book I'd write. Now that there are other books, I realized that I need to phase out www.thethreefeathers.blogspot.com and change it to a different format in order to have more space for different projects. For that reason, please, from now on, go to www.thethreefeathers.com or www.stefanbolz.com to read all about what is to come, things that are happening right now, other projects, etc. There, you can also order a signed copy of the book, sent to you by me.Thanks so much for your awesome support and I will see you soon at the other site.Much luck!!Stefan

Monday, February 25, 2013

Hi everyone, it's Stefan,
this morning while working on "The Second Searcher," I had one of those moments a writer always dreams of. It was the moment when a new character knocked on my imaginary door wanting to be let in. I felt his presence when I saw him in my minds eye. He was powerful and protective and strong. In short, he was just so cool I can't wait to write more about him. I think he'll start out as a side character but he might just become one of the main ones.
I am also including 'Day One' and part of 'Day Two' - the first two sections of "The Second Searcher," in here if you want to read some and get excited about the prequel to "The Three Feathers." Please excuse and grammar or spelling mistakes. I have not edited much yet.

Day
1

For
a long time there was darkness. Thoughts of comfort and warmth enveloped her, telling
her of things she did not yet understand. The one who thought to her was never
absent for long from her mind. And after a while she reached out as well, first
brushing against the other’s mind with hers, then staying longer until there
was a bond between them. There, in the mind of her mother, she saw images of a
world beyond the darkness. It was a world bright and green and vast. Slowly she
became aware of voices outside. They were softly spoken, far and close but
never distant. One in particular spoke to her always. There was excitement in
this one. Laughter. Then a melody, sung to her quietly at times and loud at
others. And when her mind reached out to the one who spoke and sang to her, it
embraced hers within it instantly.

Then
suddenly there was pressure on her body. The voices outside became louder, more
urgent. Her heart rate increased until her mother’s thoughts reminded her,
assured her silently that all was well. The light came. Flickering at first,
breaking through the dark and creating patterns inside her eyelids. She
welcomed the cool air and took her first breath willingly, inhaling deeply the scent
of it. When she opened her eyes, she could not focus on anything at first. But
for a moment she saw the darkened shape of her mother’s head against the window
and she thought it the most beautiful thing there was. Then the brightness of
it all made her close her eyes again.

Her
mother’s nose nudged her, began to lick her face until it was clean. Experienced
hands began to rub down her body. The sun that came through a gap in the wood
planks of the stall illuminated them as they worked, as they dried her fur with
straw and removed the water bag. She recognized two of the hands as belonging
to the one who had sung and spoken to her. She felt her joy as they went very
methodically up and down her spine and over her head cleaning it from any remaining
residue of her birth.

When
she stood up, the girl wanted to help her but the old man gently held her back
so that she could get on her feet by herself. She had to sit back down several
times before she could stand. And when she stood she swayed back and forth, adjusting
her hooves on the floor trying to hold her balance. After a while she took an
uncertain step. Then another and yet another after that. Her ivory coat began
to dry and her mouth found her mother’s belly and she stilled her hunger. And
throughout it all she heard her mother say one word in her thoughts over and
over again. She did not know what it meant and she would not hear it again
until much later, until almost a full year had passed. But at that moment she
heard it and she knew it was her name. And her name was Wind.

Day
2

Leannah
could not contain herself. She awoke when all was still quiet and the only
sounds she could hear were the animals in the stalls below. When she peered
through the thick drapes of her attic room window she saw that the streets were
deserted. Only the baker’s son, she thought, would be out that early. In her
mind she saw him running down the street, late as usual, barely making the
corners without sliding on the sandy surface of the streets; his thick hair
unkempt and sticking up in all directions; his long, dark brown coat wrapped
around him despite the warmth of the air.

She
opened the curtain just enough to let the light stream into her attic room.
Dust particles danced in the beam as it illuminated the plank floor and part of
the narrow wood framed bed to her right. The straw filled mattress on top was wrapped
in white linens. Several handmade stuffed animals were perched to one side of
it. Next to the bed and on the floor sat a small box also made of wood that
served as table and dresser. A chair on the other side of the bed held a few
pieces of neatly folded clothes. There was a second bed on the other side of
the room. That one was empty and perfectly made, a quilt tucked into its sides
and several stuffed animals perched on top. The wall with the window in it displayed
several gray, thin, square stone plates with detailed chalk drawings on them.
Most of them showed a white horse either running through meadows and woods or
standing next to a girl who held a resemblance to Leannah herself. They were
obviously self portraits but done in such astonishing detail that for any
outside observer must have seemed to have been drawn by another person. One of
the drawings hung near the second bed. It showed Leannah on a horse and another
girl, slightly older, holding the reigns.

Leannah's
talent of drawing anything from what she saw in her mind's eye was not something
she was aware of. For her it was normal. She saw something and drew it without
spending much thought on it at all. But this morning none of this mattered.
This morning, after her chores were done, she would go and see her foal again.
She had known for a few months now that it would be her foal, the one she would
bond with and be with for the rest of their lives according to the custom of
her people. She had felt the slightest brush of the foal's mind on hers when it
was still in the womb. But Leannah was not yet able to hold on to it for longer
periods of time. She was too young and her training not advanced enough. Most
of it would happen within the next year when she and the foal would both
attempt to reach a deeper bond until what one would think the other would know;
what one would see would be visible to the other also.

When
she changed from her night gown into her day clothes, her glance fell onto the
empty bed for a moment. The memory of her sister was still overshadowed by her
grief over her death three years ago. It took a whole year for Leannah to be
able to sleep in their room afterwards. Too fresh the memory of her, too deep
the pain over her loss. And suddenly, while she stood there tying the shoe
laces of her boots, the memory of that day pushed itself into her mind and she
could do nothing but witness it again.

It
was the week before Bellerose's horse was to begin her solo pilgrimage up the Path Of No Return, the narrow, spiraling
walkway along the steep, vast walls of Hollow's Gate all the way past the Gate of Time and far up to the Plateau of Wills to make the jump into
the unknown; into either life or death. Bellerose had told Leannah the night
before that she had seen a raven on one of the totem poles at the borders of
their city. It just sat there and when Bellerose approached it, she saw that one
of its eyes was missing. Then it had flown away from the city and toward the
plains. It was not only forbidden to cross the borders of the city without one
of the masters, it was also dangerous. The city lay under the protection of a
permanent light shield that the Dark - the ones that came out during the time
of the seven nights - could not penetrate. Beyond the shield and during the
week of darkness that always followed the week of light in Hollow's Gate, the
Dark reigned and whoever was still out there when the sun set in the eastern
sky, fell prey to their hunger for blood. There was a reason the week of
darkness was called The Time of the Dark.

Leannah
had told Bellerose to stay away from the borders but she could see in her
sister's eyes that the temptation had become too big. During the weeks before
the pilgrimage the horses and their bond partners were always the most
vulnerable. They needed to shield themselves from any influence from the
outside and concentrate solely on the task that lay ahead: for the horses to prepare
for the jump into the abyss and with that leave their limitations far behind
and learn to fly. For the girls, this was the time when they were about to
cross the threshold of childhood and become not only a woman but join the ranks
of Protector of the Realm. Whoever
passed the trials during their horse's pilgrimage was automatically considered
to enter the rigorous training to become one of The Circle of The Nine. This was considered the highest honor but
also the highest responsibility of leading their people in peace, protecting
them and guarding them against outside forces.

The
day after Bellerose had told Leannah about the raven, she went to Master Torin's
house. He was one of the Elders in charge of her own training, in charge of
determining when she was ready to begin her own bonding to a foal and thereby
enter the three-year curriculum. She never went to his house before and had
only known him from her lessons at school. He was a very kind man and she knew
he would not rebuke her for coming. But her respect for him never allowed her
to even think that she would go to his house. It took her a good part of the
day to muster the courage to do so. During that time she made several attempts
to talk to her mother who was pre-occupied with her little brother. Eventually
her concern for Bellerose won over her fear and she decided to go.

When
she stood before Master Torin in his study, surrounded by books bound in worn
leather with fading letters in ancient languages, she forgot for a moment why
she was there to begin with. She suddenly felt small amongst the accumulated
knowledge of her people. Master Torin stood, hunched over a large table thickly
layered with written pages, drawings and notes. One of the drawings showed a
schematic of five structures with a large opening in their center.

The
boy who had let her into the room had disappeared quietly. She knew him to be Master
Torin's grandchild. He must have been seven or eight years of age and two years
younger than herself at that time. The old man looked up from his studies.

"Leannah,
what a pleasant surprise. What has brought you here?" For a moment she couldn't remember why it was
she had gone to him in the first place.

"Do
you know everything that is written here?" She asked, mostly because it
was the first thing that came to mind.

"Hardly,"
he answered with a smile. "And the more I study those, the more I reckon
how very little I know."

Leannah
suddenly felt silly to have come here. It was just a raven and nothing more. There
was no cause for concern and therefore no reason for her to be here.

"I'm
sorry... to have interrupted you, Master Torin. I... I forgot. I forgot the
reason... I shouldn't have come. I apologize." She turned abruptly and
walked toward the door.

"Leannah."
She heard his voice behind her and stopped. "Why don't you sit and we'll
talk for a few minutes. Now that I have you here, why not use this time to get
to know each other a little more."

She
turned and looked at him. Her conflict must have shown plainly in her face for
he smiled slightly while walking to one of the two chairs in front of the
hearth where he sat down. From a small table he took a pouch with pipe tobacco
and began to stuff a craftily carved wooden pipe.

"Or
you can just tell me what it is that bothers you and let me decide whether or
not you are right in thinking it silly. If it is, the both of us will just
forget about it. If it isn't, well then I'm going to be very glad you have told
me.

He
lit his pipe, puffed out several times until he relaxed into his chair.

"What
do you think?" Pipe in hand he pointed to the chair across from him. His
smile encouraged her more than she wanted to admit. Eventually she walked over
and sat down, her back straight up her hands folded on her lab. She looked at
him for a few moments, looked at the short, mostly white, scruffy beard and
equally scruffy hair. His eyes of slate gray watched hers calmly, waiting
patiently for her to speak. The fire crackled in the hearth, its warmth
extending toward her bare feet.

"Bellerose
saw a raven yesterday. On the outskirts of the city. He was one-eyed."

Her
words hung in the air like thick smoke. It seemed as if all color left Master
Torin's face at once. His eyes did not leave hers. Gone was the friendly old
man. Gone the wise Elder.

"Asher!"
He spoke loudly into the room and then more quietly to her: "Are you sure
of this?"

The
door opened and the boy came back. "Get Peregrine."

"Yes,
Grandfather." Asher briefly looked at Leannah as if astounded by the
command, then he quickly left the room. She could hear his hasty footsteps
outside.

"Are
you sure of this?" Master Torin asked again.

"Yes.
Yes, I'm afraid I'm sure. What does this mean?"

Master
Torin got up and crossed to the door. He took a hooded cloak from one of the
hooks.

"Where
is your sister now?"

Leannah
just looked at him. She could see the foreboding in his eyes. Tears welled up
in her.

"Leannah,
do you know where your sister is now?"

"No.
I don't. I have not seen her since this morning." She began to cry.

"Go
home at once. I will send someone."

All
she could do was nod. "Come," he told her.

She
got up from the chair and walked toward the door. Before Master Torin opened
it, he knelt down before her. His callused hand removed a string of hair from
her face. His eyes told him more than she wanted to know. Then he got up and
left the room.

She
followed him to the outside. It was as if all strength had left her legs. Asher
stood there, Peregrine behind him. The wings of the white Pegasus were
stretched out reaching at least twelve feet on either side of the creature. Having
grown up amongst the Pegasus and having been around them all her life, Leannah
still could not help but be astounded by the creatures' magnificence and for a brief
moment her concern for Bellerose was washed away and exchanged for a deep sense
of comfort.

Master
Torin's words brought her back. "Go now," he told her. Then, with a
fluidity completely belying his age, he jumped onto Peregrine who pushed
forward, her front hooves already in the air. They gained speed fast and after
a few seconds, the Pegasus lifted up, her wings pushing them upward and toward
the sky.

Leannah
remembered very little of what had happened afterwards. Only one scene stood
out from the blurry images and raw memories of the day when her sister
disappeared. All she remembers was that she suddenly had found herself at home
sitting in the kitchen with her mother there and her father trying to comfort
her. Master Torin was in the room and several others and all she could think of
was why she couldn't have told him earlier. She could not fight the thought
that she might have been able to save Bellerose if she would have gone to
Master Torin in the morning. She felt that her sister's death lay on her own shoulders
and as much as everyone told her that she could not possibly have known, she did
not believe them. She was certain she never would.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Hi there, it's Stefan,
I had a great time at the Lenape School Library Fair yesterday (If I would have known that it was also 'Crazy Hair Day' I would have done something with mine). I spoke to many awesome young readers about Joshua's adventures and signed a lot of copies. It inspired me to work on the sequel and prequel to The Three Feathers even more and to get through writing it faster. As a writer it is always very helpful to know who you are writing for.
If you have read the book, feel free to write me with your comments at stefanbolz@yahoo.com or leave a review on Amazon.
I also wanted to tell you about the German translation of The Three Feather. As I am writing this, a friend of mine is working on it very diligently. I'm expecting the book to come out sometime over the summer. Because German is my native language it will be interesting to read it once the rough translation is done. To read something in your native tongue is always deeper, affects you more than in any other language, however long you have known the other one. I very much look forward to reading it. This is in part due to my having been influenced by German fair tales like the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen. A few of those tales made their way into The Three Feathers for sure.
I also met several young readers yesterday who expressed an interest in writing. If you are reading this and you have an idea about a story or a book or even just a scene, as crazy and 'far out' as it might seem to you now, just dive in and let yourself completely immerse in it, if only for a few hours. See what happens. Put your pen to paper (or your fingers to the keyboard) and write. The Three Feathers is nothing but me giving complete permission to myself to dream up a story as fantastical as this one. Let your imagination soar and see where it takes you. I always use my iPhone's voice recorder when I get an idea about something and record it immediately - even if it's 2AM at night. Those ideas are usually the best ones. Several of the scenes and images in The Three Feathers came to me at night or while driving my car. As a writer it is your job to catch those ideas. They usually only appear once. You gotta be quick and don't let them pass by.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Friday, January 18, 2013

Hi everyone, it's Stefan. It has been a while. Much has happened in the last six months. The story of The Three Feathers has been well received so far. Reviews exceeded my expectations many fold. About 200 copies sold locally and there is no end in sight. Inquiring Minds in New Paltz, NY has been very helpful in promoting the book. But there were others who, unexpectedly, invited me to do readings and/or book signings. There was the Stone Ridge library, the Kingston Farmer's Market (twice), Half Moon Books in Kingston, COTA in New Paltz, and last but not least, the Natural Pet Center at Ireland Corners in Gardiner. I had lots of fun talking about the magnificent journey of Joshua, Grey and Krieg and their quest to find the three feathers.

For The Three Feathers this year, I think, will be about schools. There are several in the area that are interested in an author's day which means me reading to 5th through 8th graders and talking about Joshua's journey. I'm really excited about this. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that children would make such a strong part of the book's audience. There will be an author's day during the library fair at Woodstock Day School in April, an author's day at Lenape elementary school in New Paltz and a few others that are in the works.

Besides touring for The Three Feathers, I'm working on something that is very close to my heart even though it took some convincing for me to do it. It is called "The Three Feathers - A Spiritual Journey". During the writing of The Three Feathers I realized that Joshua's journey was a metaphor for a spiritual journey, from beginning to the end. I decided to go deeper into this and see what would come out of it on the other side. I'm done with a rough draft, now have to flesh it out a bit and put it into proper format. If everything goes well, I would think that by March it should be ready to be published for kindle and in paperback.

Then there is the prequel and sequel to "The Three Feathers" both waiting to be written. The prequel is set about a thousand years prior to Joshua coming on the scene. It tells the story of the second searcher and her task of freeing her people from slavery and oppression. It will reveal lots of back story to Joshua's quest in The Three Feathers. I have been allowed glimpses into some of the scenes already and I have to say they look amazing. A good portion of the book will involve the training the horses in Hollow's Gate have to go through in order to be prepared for their pilgrimage up the ancient path along the walls of Hollow's Gate. On their pilgrimage they have to ready themselves for the jump into the unknown to go past their limitations and get their wings. Wind will be in it and we will meet her as a foal and find out what happens to her and why she ends up petrified in stone.

The sequel, "The Fourth Sage", is set one thousand years after Joshua's quest and in a completely different, high-tech future world where corporations own everything. There we will meet Aries who is in search of her own destiny. What Joshua's role in this is, I cannot reveal just yet. All I can say is that I can't wait to write this one.

There is a bit more information on the above mentioned books here in the blog. Enjoy!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

This is a small excerpt from the first draft of "The Three Feathers - A Spiritual Journey", the companion to "The Three Feathers". In it, we follow Joshua's quest as it symbolizes our own journey of Self discovery.

Imprisonment and Freedom – “Jump”
Once we have answered the call from our Self that reaches us from beyond time and space to go out and search for it; once we have committed ourselves to the journey into the unknown, we will inevitably come to the point where we begin the descent into the world of the unconscious mind. And just like Joshua did not want to enter Hollow’s Gate, we don’t really want to go down there either. We think we want what’s waiting for us on the other side but we don’t yet want to do what’s necessary. We are still paying lip service to ourselves. “Of course I want peace. Of course I want love. Of course I want to be happy.” We are at a point in the journey where we think we want those things but are not aware of the large iceberg beneath the surface that simply says ‘no’.
The journey we are about to undertake is the exploration of that iceberg, the area that lies beneath the surface. Everything that is hidden from us and only visible when we know where to look, lies there. All that we have kept from ourselves; all the beliefs in us that stand in the way of accepting who we are in truth—our belief in smallness, in our own frailty, our vulnerability, our lack, our needs and wants, our puny grievances and pity angers. All that lies there. And we know it is there. No wonder we don’t want to get anywhere near it.

Joshua and Grey fall into Hollow’s Gate—a world 5,000 feet below the surface—during their attempt to free Wind, a Pegasus, from her imprisonment. And so it happens to us at some point: We find ourselves free falling with no idea where we are about to go, only sensing on the periphery that it’s going to be huge and scary and will hopefully not cost us our lives. As for Krieg, he did not fall. He jumped.
The small section in the book after Krieg and Wind escape to the surface is worth mentioning here. It is about limitations and the almost impossible conflict within ourselves of both the wish and the tremendous fear to leave them behind. When we first ask the question if there could possibly be more to us than flesh and skin and bones we, for the smallest of moments, question our limitations. We stop believing in them for an instant and what could be—what is there hidden deep within us—looks up to the heavens and senses that there must be something in us that is greater than the sum of our parts. Then we cast our eyes down again and continue with our ‘normal’ lives.

Wind gives Krieg an outlook on his life that he did not know was possible. He always believed that he would be a war horse until the end. He thought that he was who he was—an old horse at the end of its life—and that nothing could ever change that. When he first agreed to help Joshua on his journey, he changed his own destiny. And when he meets Wind, she introduces him to the next chapter in his life. It is the chapter of questioning his limitations. He didn't realize that he had prepared for this moment for a long time and throughout all his struggles. In fact, his struggles were, in a sense, the preparation. They instilled in him the wish to be free of them. The struggles gave him the motivation to make the leap and jump.

In this section, Wind tells Krieg about how she has gotten her wings. The wings in the story are symbols for the freedom from limitations. She talks about the legend of the flying horses and how people have interpreted it wrongly in the past. Krieg had thought all his life that Pegasus foals came out of the womb complete with wings attached and ready to fly. Wind tells him however that they do not have wings at birth. They can’t fly initially even though flying is their birth right. “Don’t you know that we are horses?... We are horses that learned to go past our limitations. We have been given the chance to fly, to leave behind all that limits us and soar with the eagles high above the earth. We have been given freedom...”
Wind indicates that it is a long and hard road to letting go of one’s limitations and to learn how to fly. The horses in Hollow’s Gate 1000 years prior to Joshua and his friends coming onto the scene not only have to learn how to fly. They have to learn how to grow wings. They have to overcome something that is embedded into their DNA. That’s why the sky people served the Pegasus in the City of Light Ruins. The Pegasus were advanced beings because they knew what it took to let go of one’s limitations and reach far beyond their little selves.

Questioning our limitations is an enormous task. Thankfully we don’t have to do more than that. We can’t abolish them but we can acknowledge them gently and look at them kindly and in doing so, pass through them to the other side. Our limitations are not the problem. It is our belief in them that is the problem. We believe that our limitations will, in fact, keep us from reaching our goal of peace. They can’t. As Wind says to Krieg: “Your limitations, you must not believe them. You must not fuel them with doubt about yourself. You must know they are not and have never been part of you. You must know yourself. And not only must you know yourself you must love it as well. Deep within, you must love… you.”
We don’t have to work on loving ourselves. Our Self is love. We only have to question that which we put in between ourselves and love. We have to question our limitations because any limitation we experience is a limitation we placed between ourselves and our full awareness of love’s presence.

Krieg’s jump into the unknown is equivalent to our questioning our own limitations. This is not a one-time thing. For Krieg getting his wings is the beginning of his final journey. There is still work for him to do. He can still go further and so can we. But we can begin to realize, in time, that what awaits us on the other side of our limitations is freedom. We can “soar with the eagles high above.” We are not bound to what holds us down, holds us back, stops of from crossing the seeming chasm between how we see ourselves now and who we are in truth. We can begin to question the limited awareness we have of ourselves, of others, and of the world. We can grow our own wings, in time. The horses learning to fly in the story is our equivalent of seeing ourselves and the world from a completely different plain field. We can look down at the battlefield of our lives and, from up here, look at it with kindness and smile a little bit at the silliness of it all, rather than hold ourselves down in seemingly eternal imprisonment.

One more aspect here is worth mentioning, I think. Wind’s imprisonment was voluntary. She thought she had done something horrific, almost 1000 years ago during the time when the mines were still open and the sky people began to misuse their power. She thought she had betrayed her people in a selfish act and for that she chose to be petrified in stone. We think the same way. We believe, deep down inside, that we have done something unforgivable. To make this very practical, we think it is our selfishness that is unforgivable. And no giving to charity or helping others or trying to be selfless, makes us feel better other than temporarily. That belief is hidden so deep within us that we are not even aware of it. We are only aware of the limitations we now experience in our lives—in our body, in relationships with others, in our career or our home. However, those limitations have nothing to do with the outside world. The limitations are internal. They are the limitations we put in place in order to not experience love, in order to not see ourselves as completely forgiven. The limitations are our maladaptive solution to a non existing problem.
We will return to this topic a bit later on but for now, let’s see what happens when we fall, or jump, into the unknown and enter the treacherous domain of the unconscious mind.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

"An excellent read. In just 200 pages, the author weaves a fascinating (and unpredictable) fable filled with richly textured characters, breathtaking landscapes and everything you'd expect in a solid action-adventure/fantasy-type story. But the book also has a lot more depth than your typical Dungeons-n-Dragons tale. The cast of characters is truly unique, as are their relationships with each other. And you KNOW there's gonna be a sequel because the backdrop of the story is just so rich it's begging to be fleshed out and explored some more. If you dig the work of C.S.Lewis, George Lucas or J.R.R. Tolkien, you'll dig this. Pick this one up." [-Ric]

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

For
a long time there was darkness. Thoughts of comfort and warmth enveloped her, telling
her of things she did not yet understand. The one who thought to her was never
absent for long from her mind. And after a while she reached out as well, first
brushing against the other’s mind with hers, then staying longer until there
was a bond between them. There, in the mind of her mother, she saw images of a
world beyond the darkness. It was a world bright and green and vast. Slowly she
became aware of voices outside. They were softly spoken, far and close but
never distant. One in particular spoke to her always. There was excitement.
Laughter. Then a melody, sung to her quietly at times and loud at others. And
when her mind reached out to the one who spoke and sang to her, it embraced
hers within it instantly.

Then
suddenly there was pressure on her body. The voices outside became louder, more
urgent. Her heart rate increased until her mother’s thoughts reminded her,
assured her silently that all was well. The light came; flickering at first,
breaking through the dark and creating patterns inside her eyelids. She welcomed
the cool air and took her first breath willingly, inhaling deeply the scent of
it. When she opened her eyes, she could not focus on anything at first. But for
a moment she saw the darkened shape of her mother’s head against the window and
she thought it the most beautiful thing there was. Then the brightness of it
all made her close her eyes again. Her mother’s nose nudged her, began to lick
her face until it was clean. Experienced hands began to rub down her body. The
sun that came through a gap in the wood planks of the stall illuminated them as
they worked, as they dried her fur and removed the water bag. She recognized
two of the hands, smaller than the others, as belonging to the one who had sung and spoken to her. She
felt her joy as they went very methodically up and down her spine and over her
head cleaning it from any remaining residue of her birth.

When
she stood up, the girl wanted to help her but the old man gently held her back
so that she could get on her feet by herself. She had to sit back down several
times before she could stand. And when she stood she swayed back and forth, adjusting
her hooves on the floor trying to hold her balance. After a while she took an
uncertain step. Then another and yet another after that. Her ivory coat began
to dry and her mouth found her mother’s belly and she stilled her hunger. And
throughout it all she heard her mother say one word in her thoughts over and
over again. She did not know what it meant and she would not hear it again
until much later, until almost a full year had passed. But at that moment she
heard it and she knew it was her name. And her name was Wind.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Come out for a reading of excerpts from The Three Feathers at Hasbrouck Park, New Paltz, NY. The reading will begin at 11AM. Be prepared to be transported into the world of Joshua Aylong and his companions on their quest to find the three feathers.

Signed Paperback Edition

You can use the button below to order a signed copy. Enter your name (or names) in the field below so I know who to sign it for. The price per book is $12.99 plus tax and shipping/handling. There is also an option to order more than one book. The shipping and handling is included in the prices you see. Feel free to email me once you've read it and let me know if you liked it. It's nice to hear from you.

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About This Blog

Dear reader,

welcome to "The Three Feathers". If you have read the book, this blog has lots of additional entries, mostly written by the characters of the story. The blog also gives insights into how the story of "The Three Feathers" came about and what is to come.

This is Joshua's blog. I serve as the moderator and contributor of some of the behind-the-scenes stuff like publishing schedule, etc. If this is your first time to the site, please feel free to look around and explore. Some of the entries have spoilers in them. If they do, it will say 'spoiler alert' in the header.

Enjoy,

Stefan

P.S. If you want to contact me, just email me at stefanbolz@yahoo.com.

About Myself (Joshua)

Thanks for reading my blog. I was thinking of late that maybe there are others like me who are on a similar journey than I was during the adventure of "The Three Feathers". Not quite the same of course but following their dream-whatever that may be but with the same hopes and fears and limitations I had to surpass in order to find what I was looking for. I didn't really think about it much until I got a visitor, a young man who one day came through the beacon and looked for me. And eventually he found me. Reluctantly at first I began to tell him my story and he, very faithfully, wrote it down. It came out pretty accurately. While I told him about my adventure I re-experienced some of the horrifying encounters of it. But I also had the chance to re-visit some of the most beautiful moments of my life. They had, in one way or the other, to do with the friends I made during the journey. Be it Alda, the turtle, Broga the mighty peeper frog, Ayres the eagle, Dragon-of-the-Stone with the most powerful dreams imaginable; and, of course, my dear friends Wind, Krieg and Grey, dearest of all. I miss you so much sometimes but I know that whatever distance and time will pass, we will never be apart, like true friends are.

Thank you all so much,

Joshua

Contributions

I thought it would be great to have my friends contribute to this blog. I have heard that Krieg and Wind will definitely have something for us, as well as Grey, Alda and the person who wrote it all down on this side of the beacon. And, you never know, maybe the lioness will show her elusive self one day. Once in a while we will hear from someone named Aries who is in the midst of her own adventure, 1000 years after we had ours. But all in good time. Now enjoy.

Your friend,

Joshua

These images come very close to how it looked deep down at Hollow's Gate...